Why I Would Be Shot at Dawn Before Ever, Ever Voting for Another Republican as Long as I Draw Breath

I recently read with interest, “Blind Unanimity,” by Eugene Robinson in a recent Washington Post. As usual, I agree wholeheartedly with his words. However, I humbly wish to add some additional thoughts on the subject of bipartisanship and a new mandate with new rules and new lexicons, i.e. we are dying out here.

See, I was born a Republican to a Republican household of working-class parents. I have a lengthy Republican lineage. My parents, socially moderate—even liberal on some issues—were hard-working, responsible fiscal conservatives who also supported the party of business, being wise enough to realize no one was ever hired by a poor man. Issues and politics were discussed around the dinner table regularly. I was made to face the inequities in our society.

My father loved Abraham Lincoln and told me all the time when I was a child how Lincoln freed the slaves. And I voted Republican in every election from my first until the day I saw George W. Bush swagger forth assuming to assume the presidency in 2000, at which time a little bell rang in my head and a little voice said in my ear, “Uh oh. Here comes trouble.” Turns out my mother at 80 heard the same little voice and switched parties as well after a lifetime of Republicanism.

In Robinson op-ed, the breaking of the air traffic controllers’ union was cited as an example of a union's misjudged reading of the new sherrif in town. If I had been paying attention then as I am now, that head-bell maybe first rang softly when Reagan swaggered forth. I just didn’t hear it because I was busy raising a young family and still trusting my government to keep the playing field fairly level.

But things haven’t been the same for the American worker since Reagan laid his hand on the Bible on the Capitol steps, have they? And having gotten away with unchecked anti-Federalism, unchecked anti-American-workerism, and outright train robbery about a million times since January 1981, the party of Lincoln is now a party a stinkin’. Their most cynical move to date being the installation of the seemingly witless Michael Steele as head of the GOP. Now there is a man who appears too brainlessly, egocentrically ambitious to know tokenism when it’s bestowed upon him. Is there a word that exceeds the meaning of offensive?

So, while the Republican Nero continues to twiddle and fiddle as the firestorm in the Republic burns ever hotter, we of the washed and unwashed, educated and uneducated alike really are dying out here. And the Republican party is not-, will not-, has no interest in- saving us. Ironic in that the mess is theirs. And contrary to popular belief, the back of slavery has not been permanently broken in America. Under Republicanism it has been vastly expanded--color notwithstanding. Republican enslavement of the working class has grown to become the man who must be removed from his apartment by crane.

My very own daughter is not allowed to drive through the executive parking lot at her work despite the fact that it is the only lot that is plowed and salted during this harsh Ohio winter. When she cannot make it up a grade to park in an unplowed, unsalted employee parking lot, she is . . . what? Going to lose her job, her child’s home, her meager insurance over it?

When she calls Wells Fargo to report that both she and her husband’s hours have been reduced at work but that she is the type who pays for the car she bought--Would they work with her? Modify the loan?—she is growled at that not only will the car be taken, she will be sued and her post-reduction wages garnished. Yes, it was a growl. I was listening. By all means, let’s give our friends on Wall Street more tax money.

How many examples of such treatment would you like to hear? I have dozens. Republicans and their party “ideologies” are a blight upon this land. They demoralize employees, stifling production while claiming to promote it. They are the general who yells, “There’s the battle boys! Let me know how it went.” They are no friend to the working man. They are no bedfellow to morality or common decency. So I would never expect the party of “family values” to go gently into that good night. Not when they’ve acquired their family values by ingesting entire families.

So, yes, I would choose being shot at dawn, walking the plank, or being tortured at Gitmo before I would ever, ever, ever vote for another Republican as long as I draw a breath. The party of Lincoln is a party a stinkin’. My dad must be rolling in his grave.